Wireless Access

Need recommended practice for designing a network with two Masters (In Master-BACKUP config) to provide master redundancy and with 4 Locals, 2 in active and 2 in standby and the corresponding config template to get the needful done. ASE does not have an option to generate template for this scenario.

The expected topology is in attachment. This is primarily to support a network of over 1400 Wireless APs with redundancies at both Master and Local level.

Please suggest if below if the recommended sequence of getting the needful done:

• Enabling the Master Redundancy for one to act as Master and the other to act as Backup with a VRRP instance running between them. The master configured as licensing server.
• Configuring the Master-Local configs:

On Master Adding the Locals and on Locals adding the Master (The VRRP IP)

• Configuring HA group config on the Master, so as to decide the active local and its standby.

HA-GRP-1

192.168.10.13 ->Role ->Active

192.168.10.14 ->Role ->Standby

HA-GRP-2

192.168.10.15 ->Role ->Active

192.168.10.16 ->Role ->Standby

        4)   Load distribution of AP amongst the Active Locals (192.168.10.13 & 192.168.10.15) by accordingly configuring the LMS IPs as the active controllers & BACKUP LMS IP against the AP SYSTEM profiles of respective AP groups

There are many different way to setup what you want to do.

Here's one of the ways:

With the scenario you've describe you have 3 controllers opperating in standby mode (of different types) which could be described as idle till a controller fails. I'd be tempted to utilise all of the local controllers and split the APs between them (perhaps) equally depending on your nework, then just leave the standby-master in standby mode.

HA-GRP 1

192.168.10.13 ->Role ->Dual

192.168.10.14 ->Role ->Dual

HA-GRP 2

192.168.10.15 ->Role ->Dual

192.168.10.16 ->Role ->Dual

4 AP GROUPS

Each ap-group with differet AP System profiles (different LMS/backup LMS)

ap-group1

- lms - 192.168.10.13

- backup lms - 192.168.10.14

ap-group2

- lms - 192.168.10.14

- backup lms - 192.168.10.13

ap-group3 

- lms - 192.168.10.15

- backup lms - 192.168.10.16

ap-group4 

- lms - 192.168.10.16

- backup lms - 192.168.10.15

Setting it up in this way would take advantage of the processing power and wired bandwidth available on all the local controllers whilst still providing fast failover.

HA Userguide page

Fast Failover

Active/Active Deployment Model

In this model, two controllers are deployed in dual mode. Controller one acts as standby for the APs served by controller two, and vice-versa. Each controller in this deployment model supports approximately 50% of its total AP capacity, so if one controller fails, all the APs served by that controller would fail over to the other controller , thereby providing high availability redundancy to all APs in the cluster.

Figure 1  Active-Active HA Deployment

Thanks James for the valuable inputs.

I am looking out for options that will help me get the configuration templates in achieving the needful. The options avialable in Aruba ASE is for simpler setups.

Is there any way out to generate configuration template for a setup as discussed. 2 Controller with Master-Active Master-Standby redundancy and 4 Locals in dual mode?

I don't know anywhere you can get configuration template other than ASE.